Dominican Republic 2019

The Dominican Republic has the largest economy in the Caribbean and Central American region. Its average GDP growth rate hovered around 5.4% between 1992 and 2014 before robust domestic demand accelerated it to an average of 6.6% between 2014 and 2018, making it the fastest-growing economy in Latin America and the Caribbean over the five-year period. While for decades its economy was dependent on agriculture, sugar, and to a lesser extent coffee, tobacco, cocoa, and mining, the country's recent success can be mainly attributed to growing revenues from the tourism, free trade zone manufacturing, construction, and services industries. In fact, free trade zones now account for almost 50% of Dominican exports, and the country's tourism sector is the largest in the Caribbean.

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"The largest market for imports and exports remains the US, but we are developing additional markets for the export of agricultural products, particularly in Europe and the Caribbean." - Karsten H. Windeler, President of the Board of Directors, Marítima Dominicana